Part-Time Pundit

Stop the ACLU: Stop Taxpayer Funding for the Secularization of America

(Crossposted from Stop the ACLU)

It
happens somewhere in America almost everyday. Some small school, city
counsel or County Courthouse gets sued. Perhaps your town has a
historical monument to honor the dead from WWII that just so happens to
be shaped like a cross. Or maybe your child’s school will be having a
winter break instead of Christmas this year. Whatever it is, don’t fool
yourself…it could happen to your town. And what will happen when it
does? What will happen when the ACLU comes into your backyard? Will
your town stand up for its religious liberties, or fold? The ACLU will
go full force and has plenty of money to back it up. Does your town
have the funds to defend itself? The ACLU has the backing of huge
liberal groups, funded to the tee. How doe your town stack up?

Don’t
think it couldn’t happen to you. Right now, there are those out there
watching it happen to them. What can you do? If the ACLU wins, guess
who pays for it? Thats right, you do.

I found the following at ReclaimAmerica.Org

U.S. Representative John Hostettler has introduced legislation

which seeks to prevent the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) from
collecting millions of dollars in court awards when they seek to remove
symbols of the Christian faith from society.

The Public Expression of Religion Act of 2005 (H.R. 2679) would prevent secular organizations from collecting attorney fees after suing communities to remove memorial crosses, Ten Commandments displays,
or any other vestige of the Christian faith. The legislation reads,
“The remedies with respect to a claim under this section where the
deprivation consists of a violation of a prohibition in the
Constitution against the establishment of religion shall be limited to
injunctive relief.”

I found this at

ACLU Generates Revenue in Courtroom Campaign

$156,960 = Nebraska

The
ACLU was awarded $156,960 after a judge overturned an amendment to the
Nebraska Constitution defining marriage as the union of one man and one
woman. The amendment was approved by 70 percent of Nebraska voters.

$790,000 = San Diego

The
ACLU was given $790,000 after suing to nullify a lease between the city
of San Diego and the Boy Scouts of America. A federal judge sided with
the ACLU, ruling that the Boy Scouts are a religious organization
because they require kids to pledge an oath to God and promise to live
a “morally straight”

$150,000 = Barrow County (Ga.)

The ACLU was awarded $150,000 after suing to remove a display of the Ten Commandments from the Barrow County Courthouse.

$615,500 = Florida Supreme Court

The
Florida Supreme Court established the Florida Bar Foundation and then
commissioned the foundation to provide $615,500 to the ACLU of Florida
between the years of 1990 and 1997.

$121,500 = Kentucky

The ACLU was awarded $121,500 after suing to remove a monument outside of the Kentucky Capitol building.

$277,000 = Kentucky

The ACLU was awarded a whopping $277,000 after suing to overturn a state law against abortion in 1994.

$299,500 = Kentucky

In 2001, the ACLU was awarded more than $299,500 after suing to overturn abortion regulations in Kentucky.

$50,000 = Tennessee

A Tennessee County was forced to pay the ACLU $50,000 after losing a legal battle to preserve a display of the Ten Commandments.

$37,037 = Loudoun County (Va.)

The
ACLU was awarded $37,037 after winning a lawsuit to prevent a Loudoun
County (Va.) from installing pornography filters on public library
computers.

$175,000 = Alabama

Following
the lawsuit, involving former Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy
Moore, to remove a Ten Commandments monument from the rotunda of the
Alabama Supreme Court building, state taxpayers were forced to pay
nearly $550,000 in attorney fees and court costs. Of that, $175,000
went to the ACLU.

$63,000 = California

Taxpayers
were forced to give the ACLU a whopping $63,000 after their lawsuit to
remove a World War One Memorial Cross from the Mojave National
Preserve.

$74,462 = Habersham County (Ga.)

The
ACLU received $74,462 from Georgia taxpayers after suing to remove a
Ten Commandments display from the Habersham County (Ga.) Courthouse.

$25,000 = Pulaski County (Ark.)

The
ACLU was awarded $25,000 after suing an Arkansas county for telling the
child’s parents that the 14-year-old boy was living an openly gay
lifestyle in school.

$135,000 = Cobb County (Ga.)

The
ACLU is scheduled to receive $135,000 from Cobb County taxpayers, after
suing the county to remove warning stickers from the district biology
books. The stickers simply read, “Evolution is a theory, not a fact.”

$75,000 = Pasco (Wash.)

The
city of Pasco, Washington was forced to pay the ACLU $75,000 after they
lost a lawsuit to remove the painting of a naked woman from the Pasco
City Hall.

$52,000 = Seattle (Wash.)

Residents
in Seattle, Washington, were ordered to pay $52,000 to the ACLU — for
defending a student’s “right” to mock the assistant principal in a
sexual online parodies … sodomizing Homer Simpson and appearing in
Viagra commercials.

$6,000,000 = American taxpayers

The
ACLU, along with other pro-abortion organizations, have shared in court
awards estimated to be worth roughly six million dollars following the
Supreme Court’s decision in which they declared the Nebraska partial
birth abortion ban unconstitutional. Reportedly, these lawsuits
affected thirty states.

$18,000 = London (Ohio)

After
suing London, Ohio, for allowing their football coach to host a
voluntary prayer for athletes, the ACLU was awarded $18,000 in attorney
fees.

$110,000 = Multnomah County (Oregon)

Incredibly,
Multnomah County taxpayers were asked to pay a whopping $110,000 after
the ACLU sued them for allowing the Boy Scouts of America to recruit on
public school campuses.

$111,000 = Operation Rescue

Operation
Rescue was ordered to pay the ACLU $111,000 after losing a lawsuit in
which the ACLU sought to prevent the organization from picketing near
abortion clinics.

$230,000 = San Diego (California)

San
Diego residents were forced to pay $230,000 in legal costs in an effort
to defend the Mount Soledad Cross (a memorial to the Korean War) from
an ACLU lawsuit. The Korean War Memorial had been established in 1952.

Don’t
let it happen to your town, or if it is going to happen…don’t pay for
it. Reclaiming America has put together a petition that already has
over 100,000 signatures. We also have a petition asking for the same
thing, to stop taxpayer funding of the ACLU in Establishment Clause
cases. You can sign both petitions here. Help us curb the secularization of America.

This was a production of Stop The ACLU Blogburst. If you would like to join us, please register at Our Portal. You will be added to our mailing list and blogroll. Over 115 blogs already onboard.

October 13th, 2005 Posted by John Bambenek | Uncategorized | 2 comments

Katrina and Darfur

(Crossposted from Coalition for Darfur

======
When Hurricane
Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast last month, the American public was
privy to ’round-the-clock media coverage of the disaster, especially of
stories relating to the extraordinarily difficult living conditions
faced by those who had been unable to evacuate. Thousands of people
were left without food or water for days; their homes and cities
destroyed, they were left to fend for themselves, trapped in squalid
conditions and at the mercy of roving gangs of well-armed criminals.

As it turned out, many of the more horrific stories were later found to be false. Yet for the people of Darfur, the horrors that befell the people of New Orleans have become a way of life.

For
more than two years, nearly two million people have been relegated to
displacement camps across Darfur, with limited access to food, water
and medical attention. They live in makeshift tents that provide little
shelter from the elements, and in constant fear of rape, looting and
death at the hands of the Janjaweed militia.

An aid worker and blogger known only as Sleepless in Sudan,
who has been working in Darfur for six months, has been kind enough to
provide this assessment of the conditions in which the displaced are
now living (”Sleepless” has chosen to remain anonymous in order to
protect herself and the agency for which she works from the very real
threat of retribution from the Sudanese government)

People
are living inside temporary shelters, covering their branch or wooden
huts (those who have been there longer have built mud brick ones) with
plastic sheeting from the aid agencies, and even this has often already
been torn apart by the rains. Everyone sleeps on the floor, sometimes
in puddles - 10 people in a little shelter is not unusual, more is
common.

Now that the aid agencies are operating in many camps
there is regular water supply, there are latrines, there are medical
clinics and most importantly, there is a monthly food distribution of
staple grains and things like oil - but this does not mean people have
it easy. This season has brought many floods and people have lost their
belongings or even shelters, huts and latrines sometimes collapsed in
the rains, and the food is never enough (and people have to scramble
for things like fresh vegetables themselves anyway, as these are not
included in the distribution). Malnutrition inside the camps is still
high.

Overall, I would say conditions are adequate for survival
- though some camps (especially the ones further away from big cities)
are a lot worse off than others (Abu Shouk, for example, has dozens of
aid agencies, while places just a few hours outside of it have 1 or 2).
Whether they are adequate for what you would consider a normal life is
debatable - I would say absolutely not, and I have no doubts any
American would find them a lot more “unacceptable” than New Orleans.

I
suppose the worst part of living in the camps is having absolutely no
idea how much longer you will be there (many people have already been
there for 2 years) and also constantly having to worry that you will be
attacked - Aro Sarow showed us that even large scale attacks and
killings inside IDP camps are still a threat. In many camps - Kalma,
Tawila, etc. - it is part of everyday life to hear shooting at night,
and in nearly all of them it is still very dangerous to wander outside
and carry out chores like collecting firewood. Knowing that you are
constantly at risk of looting and assault is be an easy thing to live
with.

While the United States government was blamed for
a poor response to the Katrina catastrophe, the government of Sudan is
directly responsible for the catastrophe in Darfur. And whereas the
state and federal government are now in the process of cleaning up, and
will soon begin the process of rebuilding, the devastated Gulf Coast,
the people of Darfur currently have no prospects of ever being able to
leave the camps because insecurity is still rampant.

In the last few weeks, there have been a series of attacks on villages and camps that have created several thousand new IDPs. In addition,
nearly 40 African Union troops and workers were kidnapped over the
weekend and, in a separate incident, five members of the AU force were
ambushed and killed. And even if a semblance of peace does ever come to
the region, the people of Darfur have nothing to return to, as their
villages and homes have been utterly destroyed while their land and
possessions have been stolen.

The post-Hurricane nightmare faced
by the victims of Katrina has been the reality in Darfur for more than
two years - and will remain so for the foreseeable future.

October 13th, 2005 Posted by John Bambenek | Military / War, Sudan, United Nations | no comments